Oscars 2012: The Wrap's Odds

With the Academy ballots due at bean-counters PriceWaterhouseCoopers by day's end today (Tuesday), the proverbial dies have pretty much been cast.

Regrettably, I have yet to see much of the contenders, including runaway front-runner "The Artist" or "The Tree of Life" so I've turned to a bonafide expert to see what he says (not that I always agree with the "established" film critics anyway.)

Steve Pond, author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show, has been covering this particular circus for more than two decades, much of that time as the only reporter with full backstage and rehearsal access to the Oscar show.

Click the link the link below to see if you too like or lump Steve's "Odds"

http://www.thewrap.com/awards/column-post/steve-ponds-oscar-picks-artist-will-win-should-it-35563?page=0,0

Coronation: Oscars 2011 yield no surprises

More Oscars Photos

Winners

Best Picture: The King's Speech

Lead Actor: Colin Firth (The King's Speech)

Lead Actress: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)

Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Director: Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)

Okay, so The Fighter swung in a one-two combination in the Supporting Actor/Actress categories (sorry, Jackie Weaver, I was really rooting for you). But The King's Speech stammered and stuttered its way to the big prizes on Sunday night, as you can see above: Best Picture, Best Actor (Colin Firth) and Best Director (Tom Hooper). Natalie Portman rounded out her awards season sweep as the troubled ballerina in Black Swan, picking up the Oscar for Best Actress.

Inception picked up the Cinematography Sound Mixing and Visual Effects awards, and The Social Network picked up Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score (Trent Reznor must be over the moon). Toy Story 3 earned the Best Animated Feature trophy. 

The Ten per Cent Award: Who will Go Home With Oscar

Nominees for Best Picture:


Toy Story 3
The King's Speech
True Grit
The Social Network;
Inception;
The Fighter;
Black Swan;
127 Hours;
The Kids are Alright
Winter's Bone


ten movies have been put forward - only one will walk away with the premier prize - or at least the most widely known - in film making: Best Picture.


Its a motley crew in terms of thematic line, but its also fair to conclude, as the USA Today writer does, that dialogue dominates. The closest thin to a comedy is Disney's Toy Story 'three-quel' and even that animated feature is awash in words - some of it nearly maudlin toward s the end.


Its also a field dominated by family themes, though not all the conventionally-defined family, as proved by The Kids Are Alright. There's certainly enough dysfunction to go around, whether its sibling tension, as in The Fighter, or parent-child tension, as in Black Swan and Winter's Bone. even amid all the hand-wringing over the plot lines and sequences of Inception, there is, at the movie's heart, the story of man longing to be reunited with his children.

So, which one of the ten will cap the night come Sunday? Roger Ebert  in his annual Oscar predictions, writes that “when a film becomes the chosen one, its glories trickle down,” and this year’s chosen film is The King’s Speech."


Given the film's awards run thus far and the ever-present Academy predilection for period pieces (even if the period is a mere 75 years ago), its hard to go against Ebert or the rest of the herd running with producer Weinstein's return to form. If a spoiler does emerge most likely it will be The Social Network, as the Academy generally does not recognize remakes, thus eliminating True Grit.


Toy Story also has an outside shot at becoming the first animated feature to win Best Picture (the only others even nominated were Up! and Beauty and the Beast), but the even money favourite is definitely King's Speech.


The Oscars will be announced this Sunday (February 27).

Who Will Go Home with Oscar 2011?

Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams -                "The Fighter"
Melissa Leo -                 "The Fighter"
Jackie                            "Animal Kingdom"
Hailee Stanfield              "True Grit"
Helena Bonham-Carter  "The King's Speech"

Likely Winner: With two lots in the draw, so to speak, The Fighter would seem a lock but, as Anna Paquin(The Piano) and Keisha Castle Hughes can attest, the Academy has a soft spot for teens and tweens in dramatic roles. Nonetheless Melissa Leo remains the front-runner with True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld a dark horse.

                        Best Supporting Actress nominee Jackie Weaver in a scene from "Animal Kingdom"

My Pick: The DVD for "Animal Kingdom" should now be available. Get it. You'll not likely see a performance as complete and as engrossing as Jackie Weaver as the sly, manipulative matriarch of a suburban crime outfit in Australia. In a perfect world, there'd be no discussion.

Bets Supporting Actor
Geoffrey Rush      "The King's Speech"
Mark Ruffalo        "The Kids Are All Right"
Christian Bale        "The Fighter"
Jeremy Renner       "The Town"
John Hawkes         "Winter's Bone"


Likely winner: Though there's a lot of buzz surrounding Christina Bale, this is in fact the most open of the "personnel" categories (recognizing individual rather than team accomplishments). Winter's Bone was hardly seen, but both its nominees (Hawkes here for supporting actor, and Jennifer Lawrence for lead actress) gave noteworthy turns

My Pick: For my money, Jeremy Renner was absolutely magnetic as the "hothead" among a group of career bank robbers in Ben Affleck's "The Town" and notwithstanding Colin Firth's command performance, Geoffrey Rush was superlative in The King's Speech".


Next week: Best Actress and Actor

Its King's Speech vs True Grit, with Fighter and Social Network in there

The King's Speech emerged the top nominated film in the just announced 2011 Oscar Nominations, taking 12 nominations, ahead of the latest Coen Brothers epic, True Grit coming with 10 nominations. Again, we have a directorial snub: Christopher Nolan's dream-thriller Inception is among the Best Picture contenders, but if it wins, Nolan won't be acknowledged by the Academy

The Best Picture nominees are:

The King's Speech;
The Fighter;
Black swan;
Inception;
127 Hours;
Toy Story 3;
True Grit;
Winter's Bone;
The Kids Are All Right;
The Social Network

Our comments and "Who Will Go Home With Oscar" preview begin tomorrow